Eiko Ishioka Costumes for Mirror, Mirror Immortalised with App

On first discovering that the late Eiko Ishioka’s costumes for Tarsem Singh’s fairytale update Mirror Mirror: The Untold Adventures of Snow White are to be featured in an ‘app’ for Apple products we were, to put it mildly, sceptical. On further consideration, however, this is actually a fun and really quite sweet idea.

Simply titled ‘Dress Up Snow’ this free app showcases several of Ishioka’s most typically imaginative and extravagant outfits for the movie, all worn by Lily Collins as Snow White – alas none for Julia Roberts’ Evil Queen. Users can alter a cutesy rendered image of Collins wearing different ensembles, in addition to changing the scenery, adding accessories, listen to dialogue snippets, etc; all very fluffy and, on the surface, fairly pointless.

Dress Up Snow will not be much use to costume design students, though who can complain at anything that celebrates Eiko Ishioka’s amazing work?

However, anything that brings Eiko Ishioka’s work to a wider audience is a good thing. Even out of context and recreated on a tiny screen, her dresses are fabric rich works of art, which is hardly a surprise a given such an impressive costume/production designer and art director’s CV: Bram Stoker’s Dracula, The Cell, Immortals, Cirque du Soleil: Varekai and more.

We’ve had a play with the app and while not exactly the intended demographic, it does pass the time. There are actually sixteen separate outfits to try on Snow White, including capes and underwear, but besides a crown only one real hat (though it is sensational). Huge crinolines and an 8ft, 60Ib wedding dress with swan wings mingle alongside black pants and blue off the shoulder top that would not look out of place on a particularly fashionable high street. We would hope and guess Eiko Ishioka had a lot of fun on this, her final film before passing away from cancer in January.

Unfortunately this app is only available to those with a U.S. iTunes account, but being as we are in the UK and managed to download it anyway, surely someone, somewhere on Google can help out…

Mirror Mirror: The Untold Adventures of Snow White is released in the U.S. on 30th March and UK on 6th April.